


Garden of Eden

by ghosty



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Davesprite is very sad, Divergent Timelines, F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 03:52:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghosty/pseuds/ghosty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Davesprite is on a ship filled with people he knows, or used to, at least, and a girl who he possibly killed, or saved, or some variant of the two. She's Rose. She's maybe not <i>his</i> Rose, but she is Rose. And he's maybe not <i>her</i> Dave, but he is. So, he hides in his room, he avoids the world, and quietly watches over his not-Rose when she's not looking.</p><p>But then she does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. voyeurism

**Author's Note:**

> ONE DAY (probably close to a year ago) i got the idea for this in my head! i read a REALLY sad essay about davesprite somewhere, and it totally opened my eyes to his character and all these incredibly tragic, intense nuances i never realized ([here](http://25.media.tumblr.com/bb42aeaf6507cb5ce625364b077b8a8c/tumblr_ml8a6tEvJD1s4sykno1_1280.png) is a handy chart that depicted my experience)
> 
> i could not get rid of the idea. so i sat, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and as per the usual, ended up with a solid 15k after months of on and off writing.
> 
> WELL, I'M FEELING AMBITIOUS. SO TODAY WE'RE POSTING CHAPTER 1. LET'S SEE WHERE THIS GOES.
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> (p.s. that "angst with a happy ending" tag is the best lmfao)

Nobody can tell if a flower is sad, even after you've known it so long it's dying on the windowsill.

You could see that its leaves were decaying, fraying around the edges like an ancient book. You could see the stem giving in like a degenerating spine, see the petals gathering in one more round of ring-around-the-rosie in the drying soil. It doesn't mean it's sad. It could mean that it's accepted its fate, and it's ready to go to the great big secret garden in the sky.

He's watching her from across the room. She is still elegant and catlike in her walking, in her mannerisms; she still has that alluring lioness smile, her eyes still narrow and flutter like a poisonous butterfly. She laughs beautifully, like a bird, and when she's curled up in bed, unspeaking and lost, she is lamblike. Always beautiful. Always radiant. Always lilithian.

But when she's alone she stares at the wall like it is hiding something from her, and her hours are more inclined to pass by burying herself in prose or gazing blankly through the silent window or sleeping for too-short periods of time.

He knows what's wrong. But he almost can't bring himself to believe it.

Almost.

\---

"Coffee, Lalonde?"

"Hm? Ah. Yes, please."

Every time he asks, she always pauses, hesitates, but then agrees and continues to do what she's doing. But there is so much more to it than that -- even a blank page is composed of thousands of little fragments of carefully pressed and bleached pulp. She may be the seemingly paper doll, but her expressions are human through thick and thin.

Dave saunters back in his cherrysicle knight pajamas, handing her the mug and scoffing when she winked and thanked him. Rose held the mug in her hands carefully, pressing her skin close to the warm porcelain, bringing it slowly to her lips and taking a long, savouring drink.

"I don't think the day will ever come where you turn down coffee from me," Dave said with the classic sneer, eyebrows drawn with cool snark over his shades. Metaphysically, the chess board appeared around them like in some ridiculous metaphorical cinematic scene, because every conversation they had was a metaphysical game of wit and cynics, the king and queen trying to outdo each other. Meta as hell. Everyone else who bothered to notice thought it was hilarious and absurd that any person, let alone pair, could take themselves so seriously, realize it, and yet still go on unperturbed.

He's watching them from across the room. Rose replies all floral and thorned, "I would probably never turn down coffee, yes. You, on the other hand, are merely the waiter and the only one who offers. What _did_ that garb do for you, add +10 to narcissism and throw in a dash of caffeine dependency? Perhaps you're self-medicating. Does something make you anxious, dear Strider? Or, maybe, _someone_."

"Goddamn, where is the motherfucking salve, I am roasting from that burn. You've outdone yourself, like, you are overcooked, holy shit. You got me. Put a fork in me -- no, a pitchfork, and fuck the apple, I want James' giant peach in my mouth. I just got served. Can I get what you said notarized, because. Yeah."

Her ankles are crossed at a beautiful acute angle and her willowy lashes bat at him and her fingertips spin centimeter circles on the cup as she drinks. Her robes, he's fairly certain, added like a +50 to the I-know-something-you-don't-know scale, and he can tell that Dave is unhappy from the way he doesn't grimace and she doesn't laugh, only smiles plainly, and he stalks off with a little bit of sulk that Rose would not continue the game. Inaction was always an option, after all.

It brings him quiet satisfaction. The sort that old men smoking pipes will never even tell their wives or dead wives about. The type of satisfaction that you'd take to the grave.

He won't ever even make it six feet under, though. Only six feet up.

\---

She doesn't like sleeping as much as she should, so she doesn't. She was always like this -- even in the other timeline, she'd stay up for days if she could, reading and observing and musing. He would joke that she deserved a wizard's beard and a toga and a tablet of wax, and she'd mostly just nod and blink a little before asking, "Pardon? I'm sorry, I missed what you said, I just found something very intriguing." Or some variant.

The point is, it's nice to see her sleeping, her hay coloured hair mussing out around her hood, her tired, virtuous eyes sheltered by pale teacup lids. She almost looks dead like this. He feels like he's seen her like this. Ophelia in orange crème, sans the dreary water. Not yet.

Since becoming so avian and crowfeathered, he's grown accustomed to his own personal spidey sense in that he always knows where everyone is at all times, and can phase through walls and distract them from her room. _Sup Kan. If you stop slumming by here every fifteen minutes to pester her, maybe I'll find a Troll Sephora and plant it right smack dab here for ya. Sound good?_ But no -- he isn't so crude. Knows not to let everyone in on the secret.

Through short, brusque gab, he quietly picks off the denizens of the rock and sends them on their way, until he slinks back to her room. It was barely fifty-three minutes and she hadn't slept in thirty-nine hours, and now she was awake, and rubbing her eyes like there was pepper in them.

"Rose."

Rose jumps out of her skin for a second and gasps, before glaring vaguely at him.

"You startled me," she said obviously, and he can't help but crack a half smile. There is something reassuring about seeing her so disoriented, her foggy eyes going mach speed to properly wake up and focus on him. Her hands quickly smatter down her bedhead, smooth out her garments, rub at her worn face again.

He feels a molten frown tug at his mouth and cheek muscles and heart, and his stomach flutters, because she is so awfully beautiful, stop. Stop.

He stops. His feathers flatten like the wind came by, and nobody notices a thing.

"You need to sleep more," he says to her, smooth and casual so she won't psychoanalyze him. Much.

As sure as day, she rolls her eyes and moves to stand up from the mattress, and he can't do anything about it. But she pauses. Her arm crosses in front of her, to hold onto her other arm, to look away from him and out of the window and think about things he'll never fathom.

It's repulsive to him that he understands her so much, compared to everyone else on this godforsaken rock, and he has to remind himself painstakingly, with a bitterly forced smile to hide that bad aftertaste, the reality that this is not the Rose he knew. But, really, she is so similar, that it's okay. In this borrowed body, the existence of one Rose Lalonde is his most secret and most treasured creature comfort, in the entire universe.

Lost in the moment, watching Rose gaze out the window, he thinks she's just going to go back to her clouds and books like old times, wondering if she thinks about when they're going to kick the bucket, but...

"Why is it you watch me while I sleep, Davesprite?"

Hearing soda pop at the end of his name makes him almost grin and scream, but he just scratches his arm with his almost-talons and shrugs vaguely and says, "'Cause you talk in your sleep and tell me secrets." It's a jest. And her eyes go wide and he sees heat enter her cheeks, her ears, like strawberry milk, and if he hadn't known better, he would say she looked like she was about to blurt something out.

"I. What?"

There was barely two seconds of ticking before the master plan of the century was laid like a golden egg in his mind, incubated, and hatched all at once in a revelation of pure magnificence. He wouldn't deny the chills he got down the back of his arms and neck at the prospect of the possibility, and god he was glad he had thought so quickly and that his mouth could still move so fluidly and that his crow-like mischievousness ruined his honor like this. He was above honor, yes, but deceit? Never deceit.

He barely flexed a pinky as he spoke, calm as still water, "Y'didn't know? You're inconsolable when you slumber, ma'am. Gives psychobabble a whole new meaning. You'd make mockingbirds proud." Not that he liked those rude motherfuckers but that was beside the point. Much more interestingly, Rose was going from strawberry milk to peeled apple skin and her lips parted in silent horror. And he wanted to kiss her.

No. No.

He reassuringly ran a finger down the length of his forearm, subtle, careful not to cue her off. She was too distracted; she stammered, afterwards, "D-does anyone else hear? The, um, things I say?"

His feathers bristled so pleasantly and he wanted to sun himself, and he replied with caring dignity, "Nah. Just myself. Good thing, too, considering."

He caught her shoulders relaxing the smallest fraction of an inch and a muted sigh of relief leaving her mouth, like her soul was exiting her body, but she was still breathless. And this was exciting. With great smugness, he realized that this was what Dave got to do all the time -- got to mess with her head and try to outdo her and play with all of her psyche, and she would retort and the game would begin. And, if he were being perfectly honest, it was normally the lady who won these matches.

But not this time. His blood hummed pleasantly all through his chest. He had completely swept the rug out from under her feet. Not even he had gotten to do this, back before bad decisions, mobius loops, his stomach being used as a katana placeholder, and the adornment of wings. And Rose, now, looked more like the Rose he had known than ever before. Her stare looked plastic and dreary, and without grace, she slumped back onto the bed, and folded her hands in her lap, staring at them.

He could feel it, sense how much she wanted to talk. She was considerably handicapped, being so sleep deprived, groggy, and subjected to his masterful plans all at once. Rose could be in rags, on a crucifix, and there would be no question that she would absolutely be the most beautiful, the most radiant, the most seraphic thing alive.

"You understand my problem, then," she murmured, though it didn't seem like she wanted a response. She sat up straight without making eye contact with him, and he caught her tight frown at the corner of her mouth, and a certain ring of dew about her eyelid. He waited, anxious and pleased with himself. And she said it. There was no fanfare, no lights, no gasp from the audience -- only a childlike silence of disbelief.

Before he cawed, he caught himself and his shoulders scooped up and in and his lips parted to maybe ask her to repeat herself, but her jaw was clenched and she seemed on the verge of tears, and he had seen her cry, and by pain of death he never wanted to see it again.

"Yeah," he said somehow, surprising himself with how creamy and unruffled his tone was. His heart was palpitating. "That's kind of a thing."

She moves around on the bed, unable to find a comfortable position, and holds her own hand. He floats closer to her before realizing that his subconscious was about to take over that job for her, and she gives a humorless laugh. She didn't notice.

"I've given it a lot of thought," she says.

"I wouldn't doubt it," he replies.

"I've decided not to pursue anything." Pause. His heart is solid diamond, unyielding and unfeeling and more pristine than anything in the world. There's a feeling that a weight has been lifted somewhat from her shoulders, and he has been graced with the responsibility of sharing that burden. He's no Atlas, but he would break his back if she asked. "I love him, unquestionably, and there's no possibility that I foresee that he feels the same way. Even if he did, I'm skeptical that he could feel comfortable with the idea, or have trouble even processing it. I... don't want to be the person who does that to him. I don't want to ruin the small thing that we have."

There were words in her sentence that made his stomach flop, his synapses fire maniacally with anger, and a feeling of iodine filling his chest with regret. He cannot process any of these feelings. He's going to choke. He's turning into Eminem, fucking up on the stage, vomiting in the back. Mom's spaghetti. Shut up.

He hasn't said anything, and finally Rose looks up at him with a desperation for any reassurance, and a thousand other things he's sure, she thinks way too much to only have one intention. She eats ulterior motive for breakfast. She presses her palms together, becomes a saint, and asks in the most heartachingly childlike voice, "You won't tell, will you?"

The voice of Rose is the ultimate possession. As required by Newton's Law, the equal reaction takes place, unstoppable, and he slinks in close to her, and hears his blood beating loud in his ears as he takes her hand in his. The few seconds where he soothingly strokes her knuckles, the back of her hand with his pointed thumb, are infinite and too short.

"I take everything to the grave, you know," he whispered in reply, a small smile to accompany it. Rose's mouth turns up, too, and it wavers but she holds it.

He is thankful for that.

"Thank you," she says, and it is meaningful.

"You're welcome," he says, and it's not.

They share a moment of companionable silence, but the air is just a tinge electrical and changed now. He has an urge to whistle a low note, more of a cajoling sound than saccharine bird song, but he's gotten good at keeping these things in his throat.

Then, after a moment, Rose dips her head in farewell with a plum blossom smile, and off she goes.


	2. sanctum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one of the reasons i love writing davesprite is because he is part bird, and holy hell i love birds.
> 
> also, [here](http://8tracks.com/ghostyyy/garden-of-eden) is the garden of eden fst for your listening pleasure!

He hovers for a long time, and he knows exactly how long it is. But, eventually, he gives up trying to disappear into the air and goes through sixteen walls. He flexes his wings, and they quietly creak and crack as his bones and joints readjust after so being so tense for so long. And when he finds a stupid closet that nobody ever touches, he goes in and shuts the door. It's his room. He's cool with disappearing and spending time with himself. When everything went to shit, when everyone died, and when everyone wasn't dead but he wasn't one of them -- he kept his chin up and his rhymes fly as fuck and became his own best friend.

In the closet (he can't help but crack some sort of smile when he thinks about the connotations, followed by a twist in his intestines when he wants to tell Rose the humorous ordeal, and then a punch to the throat when he remembers acutely what time it is, and where he isn't) he has chosen, it is a comfortable size. Harry Potter staircase-cabinet sized. There's a funny light bulb dangling from the ceiling that he bumps his head on almost every time, and where he's given into magpie tendencies and stuffed together a makeshift nest of old clothes, Kanaya's frayed fabric scraps, and strange things that are there for no reason -- Christmas stockings, a baby blanket, an oriental rug. Innately, there is something very comforting about sleeping in a nest.

After having some time to collect knick-knacks of his choosing, his little cavern had become a cosy secret base. The walls were crammed with shelves that he'd gladly filled with odds and ends, the occasional fetus in a jar that popped up, photographs, records and CDs and everything else imaginable.

His pride and joy, though, was the abandoned laptop he kiped and went to town and back with. He told Dave, in a moment of vulnerable honor and truce, that he would update Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff for him. And he did. A lot, really, but it ends up just sitting on the hard drive gathering dust, because it's not like they have internet and it's not like anyone will read it. And there are serious pictures, sometimes, where he is a real boy again, and everyone is happy and fucking around like old times, but these he clicks away into a far away folder and only looks at when he cannot bear to be himself anymore. This is often.

Digressing, he grabs the laptop and moves a stack of comic books out of the way so he can bury himself in his nest-bed. Soft things swirl around him like he's immersing himself in a laundry basket, or bag of garage sale clothes, and he quiets in his security blanket as his wings fold around him.

He doesn't come out for days and days. Nobody hears him.

\---

Nobody notices.

Maybe the abode is so large that it's not of importance when orange feathers are found in the pantry, on the couch cushions, in the drain. There aren't many of them, so it's really no cause for alarm, but still.

Perhaps more sad is that no-one really seemed bothered at his absence.

When he rises from his cavern to attempt to socialize amongst his companions once more, he is received in the same way he would have been before a week of hiding. Terezi beams with pleasure at his tasty presence, others ignore him, he carefully avoids Nepeta's too-interested gaze, and Rose and Dave are too busy exchanging vitriol over coffee to really pay him much mind.

Speaking of, he spends a long moment looking at the picturesque scene. Rose looks like a painting with her legs crossed and her head tilted elegantly, holding her cup demurely in front of her and gazing steadily at her counterpart. Dave is a smattering of reds and blonde bedhead, rolling his eyes cruelly from behind his glasses. There is some exchange followed by Rose's laugh (mostly a hum, sometimes more normal, genuine teenage girl giggle-fit if you _really_ manage to get her going) and Dave's uncommon, reserved snicker. And good god surely the light was tricking his eyes, because said Dave seemed very, oddly, peculiarly, a shade pinker than would be considered normal. He spent approximately one minute and forty six seconds thinking of all the good reasons why Dave's cheeks would be this color, ranging from the laugh forcing blood flow to his face, to perhaps the heat of the light, or maybe some effect of the coffee. And deep in his gizzard there was the mocking voice that told him that he was a god damn liar.

His wings looked smaller because all the feathers had compressed. He was a shade more yellow than he should have been. Abject horror filled him, without question, and he gulped in air, turning to vanish back into nothingness and then--

"Mister Creamsicle, you seem a tad less tasty than I recall. Have you taken ill? Perhaps the stress of the journey has gotten to you?"

The earnest-but-genuinely-concerned voice of one Terezi Pyrope halted him midair, and he froze for a second, wondering if that edge to her voice was the subtle hint that she _knew_. But he was cool, collected, quick, and replied succinctly, "There's always a fuckin' draft in this room and I can't stand it. I just get cold. Someone should light a fire in here. I'm sure the horn pile would burn real nice."

Terezi cackled and accepted the answer, nodding in farewell as she pattered off to bother someone else. Meanwhile, Cherry Kool-Aid and Sunny Delight were still doing the huff huff and it was such a train wreck at this point that he couldn't bear to look away. It was a combination of mesmerization due to Rose visibly (to him, at least) turning up the charm. It was so potent that even though it was directed at the person he wished the least for it to be directed at, he still felt his heart rate take a jog uphill and warmth in his stomach and a lightness that may have been him floating higher than usual. The effect on Dave looked similar; he couldn't restrain a smooth smirk, he carefully shielded his face with a palm, and it only enticed Rose to lean in closer, and she looked so silently earnest and proud. She whispered something so quiet that he couldn't hear it. Dave snap-crackle-popped something back way too quickly. They were leaning too close together. He felt his fist clench absently, talons finding purchase in his palm. His vision turned tunnel on him. His stomach clenched. And Rose tilted her head and gods above and below bless Karkat Vantas for storming into the room, slamming a hand on the wall as he does, yelling impressively loud about how fucking sick he is of Kanaya's well-intentioned gothic lace decor appearing in the bathroom.

The little bubble is broken between the rapt pair, and they lean back in their seats, Rose with perfect posture and only looking a little rattled, Dave slouching and invisibly taking a long, deep breath. He can see his eyes screwed shut from here, practically hear him screaming at himself in his head.

It was a small victory. But Kanaya is looking up from her book now, brow furrowed as she intends to attempt to verbally lacerate him, or perhaps calm him down.

Dave gets up with a small salute of farewell, and he sees Rose deflate in her chair after he turns away.

He's sick of the fucking soap opera he's watching. Living in. Feels disgusted for a while. Phases through the wall and doesn't look back.

\---

This pattern continues.

Whenever he dares to venture out into society, it's not uncommon to find Dave's attention being completely absorbed by one Miss Lalonde.

And then one day, she approaches him. He nearly drops the dishes that he's washing, but she doesn't seem to notice when she says plainly, "Would you like to hang out, or something?"

"Uh. Yes."

"Good. Your room?"

He thinks over it for a long moment, chewing on the thought and all of the intricacies of his situation and all the consequences it could bring. There was a deep, territorial possession over his closet, one that he couldn't decide if it was bird's or boy's, but fuck it, but, it was his secret safe place, with all of his worldly things, and treasures, and.

And the way Rose's eyes were honest and amaranthine skewed his perception of the world. There was a sudden wave of great mourning and crushing guilt and images that flashed by his eyes so quickly where he saw them drinking and wasting away and staring at clouds and how she begged him to stay with her forever, and his heart clenches and the culmination of this is a soft, helpless smile.

"Sure," he says. "Follow."

He floats away before he can catch Rose's expression of curiosity and concern. They go down, down, down, to the recesses of their ship, places that Rose had barely touched in her time here already. He feels her eagerness radiating behind him, subdued but real, and stops himself before he has time to regret this. They are finally in front of a door; unassuming, ignorable, slightly dented.

"Is this it?" Rose asks politely.

"Yeah," he replies. "Home sweet home."

And they go in.

He feels something like heat rise in his face, because the first thing that will be noticed is his nest, and it is just now that he remembered the luminous pink scarf that belonged to the girl accompanying him. He swallows a hard lump, plays it totally cool, floats inside, bumps his head on the light bulb, and nestles comfortably on a stool in the corner while he watches her reaction.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting. Disappointment, maybe. Reservation, as usual. Disdain, probably, at the clutter. Instead, Rose's eyes go soft as mashed potatoes and are filled with wonder. Outwardly, her expression was only a vague smile, but when you've done nothing but study a person's face for countless months, you catch every microexpression in HD. Her eyebrows perked a millimeter -- surprise. Her small smile -- pleasure. One cheek went up more than the other -- specialness. A gaze that moved slowly, drinking in every detail of his room carefully -- belonging.

He ignored his fluttering heart and bumped his fingertips against each other deftly. Nervous habit. Tried to calm his thoughts.

"So, what do you think?" he quipped levelly after a minute. "I'm sure the buying value will be going up as the rest of the rooms are polluted with Señor Juggalo's cartel ingredients. Folks gotta move out west sometime, I just happened to complete the Oregon Trail first."

Rose lip twitched up, and her honesty took him by surprise. 

"Needless to say, you seem to have struck gold."

Amidst the CDs and posters and jars and trinkets, the figurines and music boxes and yo-yos and silverware cramming up shelf space, all illuminated by a pathetic but adequate yellowy, dusty light, she stood: perfect posture, head tilted as she fondly regarded the space, one hand folded against her elbow. Her blond wisps had grown into clumps with time and lack of trimming, and they framed her smooth cheeks and swan's jawline and captured her amethyst eyes perfectly.

And everything looked perfect. With great hesitance and sudden comprehension and relief and disbelief and conflicted morals and logic of all sorts, he was hit with the understanding that his little nook had been missing one very important thing, and it was her. He didn't know if it was boy or bird again this time, some crow instinct that persuaded him to collect peculiar and neat objects, or his stupid, enduring affection for the girl he had left to die, but without a doubt, he felt perfectly at ease to have her where she was right now.

"Thanks, Lalonde," he finally said.

Rose looked at him, her gaze questioning something, but incomprehensible. He knew she was trying to figure something out, he could see every fucking gear turning at casual mach speed, but her mild expression betrayed nothing. Eventually, she asked, "Would you like to play chess?", and he rolled his eyes and nodded, and she plucked the set she’d been eyeing from off of a shelf.

They sat in his nest together, got comfortable, and played.

He lost badly. This was mostly due to his heart palpitations, thoughts consumed with romantic absurdity, grief, misery, and a very hard battle involving trying not to grin like a fucking moron every time she looked at him.


	3. camaraderie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorely tempted to look up davesprite's route on namco high :'| but i really want to play it for myself. DIFFICULT DECISIONS.
> 
> fst [here](http://8tracks.com/ghostyyy/garden-of-eden)!

Every day was Christmas.

There was an initial phase of self-loathing and nausea and staring at the wall, dragging fingers against the floor and scalp and balling into tight fists that cut, but he counted backwards from ten, relaxed. The turmoil was simple: he did not deserve it, and this would only end in pain. But, she was solace, and forgiveness, and a selfish prize. He could take her away from Dave, keep her for himself, and all the while pretend that he was fixing the very thing he broke (shattered, decimated, vanquished, etcetera).

He went back and forth. He dreamt about their last days together, holding hands by the river, planning their deaths. The sky was a perfect cotton candy color, but the clouds had started going out, one after the other, like an old string of Christmas lights. Every burnt-out cloud was one less reason for Rose to keep hoping. But still, they'd go sit at the riverbed, feet in the water, and talk about anything that wasn't their situation. Until it was inevitable.

They fought tooth and nail to the end. Grasped at every straw in an attempt to save their session, their friends. But the quiet doubt that they knew they'd fail grew louder and louder until it was the plain truth, and at the climax, he found Rose staring at her needles with a very strange and horrifying look in her eyes and he nearly choked when he lunged at her and ripped them out of her hands, threw them to the ground, held her as they sunk to the grass with her sobbing raucously in his arms. Dealing with the fact that you want to die is not easy.

They eased into it gently, though. Rational discussion about options; Rose offered that they could merely wait it out until the game ended, and see what would happen. He said he would go crazy waiting. He asked if they should go down fighting. She said it would probably be painful and slow.

Regardless, he was trying very hard to forget all of that and make up for it. He would never get that Rose back, yes, but he had this Rose instead, and would use his time wisely. And every day was Christmas.

Every day, without fail, she would come find him. The first day, she found him in the kitchen, and said good morning, and they chatted briefly before she wandered off to read. The next day, he decided to coop up in his room, and some time midday, there was a light knock on his door that made him rocket into the ceiling and smash his head and squawk. He promptly covered his mouth and sputtered, "Yeah?" and Rose replied, "Is this a bad time?" and he said, "No, no, it's cool, come in," and the door opened slowly and Rose walked in hesitantly, saw him absently rubbing his head, and she smiled.

That was the first day they talked about Dave.

Conversation started as normally as it ever could, he asked about her day, they made easy talk, and then sadness crossed her eyes and he made the mistake of asking what was wrong.

"Hm. Well, I suppose if there's anyone I could discuss this with, it would be you..."

Rose is now kneeling elegantly on one side of the nest, her hands folding in her lap. She's picking at a stray thread, and she's looking down, but her eyes aren't focused on anything.

He knows immediately what's going to come next and his stomach dips into his throat.

"Dealing with the... Dave situation... is harder than I anticipated," she spoke slowly, carefully choosing her words. "It's not a problem, per se, and I am in no danger whatsoever of faltering or giving too much away. But..." She takes a deep sigh, and her hand stops. He is sitting perfectly still, expression blank as printer paper. She doesn't notice. "...It doesn't mean it's not painful to endure. Talking to him, day after day, always being around him, hours of us partaking in riveting conversation and banter and I'm just so... disappointed... when I think that no one will ever be able to verbally spar with me the way he does. And his humor, it's just, so... endearingly ridiculous. If there's anyone's company I could put up with for the rest of my life, it's unquestionably his."

They bantered like that, he thinks. They had riveting conversation for months, he thinks. He has humor like that, too, he thinks. He could live a thousand lifetimes with her, he thinks. Knows, even.

She shifts, moving her legs underneath her, and her hands rub her palms thoughtfully. With some effort, he notes that in a normal conversation, the other party would reply right about now, so he says, "That's rough." And she half rolls her eyes and even gives a note of amusement.

"Indeed," she agrees. "And I'm beginning to wonder if I should change my course of action."

Stars and comets fizzle past his vision and he thinks of a million possibilities that she could decide that this isn't worth it and stop fucking talking to him and looking at him but no, he's cool, everything's cool, he only rolls his ghostly tail around a little bit and stretches his wings. Each feather quivers unnoticeably, a way for his pent up anticipation to escape. He could offer that continuing this way is just more harm than good, and it's making her suffer needlessly, and plus Dave seems to have a thing with Terezi or Jade or the Mayor or fucking any other single person on the ship, he couldn't give a shit who it was, as long as it convinced her to give up. And what if he found out and ignored her for the rest of his life because he was disgusted? That might convince her. And of course, there's the ramifications of anyone else finding out that her ectobrother rustles her jimmies--

"I've been thinking about this for some time now, and I don't think he's completely platonic about his feelings toward me. And if this is true, then I'm contemplating merely shifting my tactics to something a little more... saccharine, more forward. Obviously I won't be letting my hair down and displaying my garters for the world to see, but straying a little bit out of neutral territory might give me a clearer answer to my question."

But, Rose is Rose and she knows what she wants.

"How can you tell?" he asks her in an attempt to plant doubt straight to the source. "He's a cagey motherfucker and is spending twenty five hours a day making sure he looks cool as a ghoul's asshole. And he's wearing those shades for a reason." Is it suspicious that he so immediately countered her plan? She doesn't appear to think so. She's too busy pursing her lips, thinking, cultivating a convincing response.

"At risk of sounding like a celebrity stalker, I've studied him very carefully. I can say with confidence that I can at least read him better than perhaps any other individual on his ship, excluding you." She stops. An idea hits her. He already knows what it is. He is already looking for a way out of this. "Have you observed at all? Do you have any insight to his personal plights?"

"No."

No elaboration, no ifs ands or buts. Rose's expectant expression fades into disappointment, then neutrality, and for a long moment, there is a clear image of Dave, sitting at the table, his cheeks faintly pinker than they should have been. He hides that memory, far, far away, in a place where he will hopefully never think of it again.

"I believe small steps are better than inaction. Right now, at least. Thank you for your input."

"No problem. That'll be a nickel."

"Will a game of chess suffice?"

"You drive a hard bargain, ma'am. Break out the set, we're about to get strategic as fuck up in here. Gonna make Churchill proud."

"Indeed. I'll have you know I am distantly related to Napoleon Bonaparte himself."

"Napoleon Bonerparty? Holy shit--"

"To think of all the implications of you construing that into phallic commentary..."

He hushed, though his smile was wry and his insides were still smoldering from her words.

Every day is Christmas now that she visits.

Christmas is not always good.

\---

"Yahtzee!"

"Fuck my tight ass, how do you keep doing that? Are you cheating?"

"What a cruel accusation. I should think the one with the influence on temporal mechanics and causality would be the one to play underhandedly, no?"

"I'm gonna underhand your ass in a minute, Lalonde."

"I'm touched. So many ass references today, Davesprite."

But she bites her lip as she smiles, which means she was truly tickled by the exchange and he feels fluttery and full of jelly beans to outweigh the accompanying sinking feeling that comes with the end of her sentence, and she scratches numbers onto her pad with her pen. He's pretty sure that if he runs the numbers right, his chances of winning are nearly zero, but that's a situation he's quite familiar with, thank you, and he will handle it with resentful grace as usual. Hopefully, however, this time it will end with just a sore ego, instead of a dead brother, or katana through the gut, or sacrificing everything to apparently save himself (word of advice: don't).

So she wins. 

"Loser cleans up."

"Yeah, yeah."

And he cleans up.

"The amount of feathers that keep cropping up everywhere is something to behold. If it isn't too personal to ask, what prompts the molting schedule? Is it a seasonal occurrence, or is it tied into some other biological timer?"

Not even gonna lie, he was impressed at how smoothly he managed to not lock up and instead calmly, naturally put away the Yahtzee box on the shelf, as if she had been conversationally talking about the weather. Rose waited patiently for a response. He wasn't sure if he knew how to give it to her.

Listen, Rose, he would begin. I can't... I mean. Fuck, let me start over. It's not biological. I mean, it is sometimes, but not always. You're gonna love this, because it's psychology. Y'know how people can lose hair when they get too stressed out and they turn to toupee support groups and drink coffee and weep in the shower? It's more like that. When shit gets tough, the feathers abandon ship. Yeah, I know, you're wondering why I'm in a rut. Get a load of this: I've been in love with you longer than I can remember. Isn't that sick? Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I just think you're insanely attractive and the cat's pajamas and I have no clue what I would do without you. Nothing compares. I missed you more than fucking comprehensible to the human mind, or so I thought, and I would rather die than have to willingly leave you again. The unbearable agony wouldn't be worth it. But anyway, I am a pile of shit and that's the moral of the story. Good talk, let's do this again some time.

Yeah. 

No.

"Dunno. Just happens sometimes."

When he turned back to face her, there was a strange look in her eyes. Something in the waters of her expression lurked miles under the surface, and her head tilted just a half an inch, like she was thinking very carefully about something. Now he was worried. How much had he given away? There was a swell of panic in his gizzard, but he desperately stamped it down, and Rose shifted into a knees crossed position with her hands absently rubbing against each other in her lap as she looked up at him, openly and genuinely.

"Are you all right?" Rose asked softly.

"Sure," he replies.

The following jolt of electric chair-level shock and sizzle was something he was not remotely prepared for. There was a moment where he looked like a cartoon cat whose fur went through a wave of frazzled before it hit and attached to the ceiling, spitting and fussing, but composure swept over him and he adjusted his glasses quickly and his eyes zoomed in on the petite hand that had rested on his forearm in reassurance. Violet eyes penetrated him with their sincere concern, sympathy. His mind blanked.

"You can tell me what's wrong. You've done so much for me, and I'd like to repay that favor if I can."

The words came out harsher than intended.

"You can't do anything for me."

She actually looked like she had been smacked. A small voice in his head quietly pumped its fists that he could read her so well, because that was clued him in on all the colors that swept by her eyes -- dark hues of resentfulness, dull echoes of hurt, swirls of confusion, bafflement. This was spiraling out of control. His hands clenched up, eyes went wide invisibly behind his glasses, his mouth opened to try to say something to dissolve the block of ice that had immersed the room, but there was only the muffled silence of the confined closet, the sound of her breathing, the quiet flutter of his late sunset wings.

"Ss..." He started, choking on a squawk. "Sorry."

"It's all right," she replied, everything about her stoic suddenly. She didn't make eye contact, instead became half-lidded with interest in a small snow globe on some shelf. He knew which one it was -- an old Sleeping Beauty relic that played a clunking rendition _Once Upon a Dream_ when you wound it up, and made the Prince and Aurora spin in eternal waltz. It was pretty. He contemplated how he could kill himself inconspicuously. Wondered what she was thinking. Pondered on the chances that she hated him and that everything he had so preciously stored in his heart like his nest of trinkets was Rose instead and now what if all of that was crumbling like pastries and turning to dust and fading like phantoms into attics and walls. What if this was it? Maybe she'd leave him, again. _Again_. What a strong, powerful word. He was nearly impressed with the idea of dying twice, loving twice, losing everything twice. Not many people get to say they did that, you know.

Probably because it's not something they would ever care to admit. It's not a badge of honor. It's a fucking scar.

"I... I did not just mean that out of obligation." He wasn't expecting her to continue the subject, voice barely on the edge of shaky. "I could have phrased that better. I meant to say that you have done a lot for me, and I want to help you if I can, as well. Because you are my friend, and I care about you."

So there were fireworks, and sunbursts, and manic spinning hamster wheels, but nothing betrayed it outside of an absent flicker of his ghostly tail. He looked away, far away, far into the glassy depths of a snow globe...

"Thanks, Rosie," he said softly after something like seconds and centuries. He flexed his fingers, rubbing them against each other to feel the vague, tough skin and almost-talons. "It's really nothing, though. Don't worry your pretty head."

This was the only time he looked at her; out of the corner of his eye, secretly. She looked forlorn. Lost. But she offered a weak smile, and ran her hand down his arm, friendly.

"Okay," she said. "I'm here if you need me."

The conversation lulled into silence. The goodbyes were quiet, and the shutting of the door was careful, no more than a muted _click_.

He stares at the wall for hours and hours and hours. There is nothing but the quiet sound of a music box playing, two tiny figures dancing in its midst.


	4. namesake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy valentine's day! have some miserable davesprite! :)
> 
> edit: LMFAO 8888 WORDS ALRIGHT I'LL TAKE IT

Things get better, and things get worse.

Whatever situation that happened was forgotten -- forcibly. An elephant in the room with an invisibility cloak on.

There are many games played, and many conversations had. Day after day. She still comes back.

Lots of those conversations are about fun things, and sweet things, and interesting things. Rose seems impressed sometimes at how much he knows about things, many of them strange. How to place where you are by trajectory of clouds and stars, how to crochet, how to relay messages through water, how to talk someone out of suicide, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Sagan, cummings, anxiety, Shinsengumi, ornithology.

More of those conversations are about his living, human counterpart. You know, the one who has stolen her heart and makes her cheeks pink and her palms press together shyly.

But she's sleeping more, at least. Peacefully, too. More like Aurora now and less like Ophelia ( _tomorrow I will not think about kissing her_ , he thinks, and he promises himself again and again, breaking it over and over and over).

He spends long nights as the tawny sentinel, tired and tawdry. The time is taken to clean up a little, even -- to clear away the horns here and there, remove the scrap metal and the things that can be tripped on and make noise that becomes an unintentional alarm clock for Miss Lalonde.

And -- as always -- he watches her. The rhythmic, perfect tempo that is the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. The opaque color of her eyelids, fluttering as she dreams ( _what does she dream about?_ ). Her hands do strange things when she sleeps, though, and he's not sure if he just never noticed or if it just started happening now. But she claws. Her fingernails tear distantly at the sheets under her. Her fingers twist and twitch, like she's playing a piano or a violin, or perhaps touching someone's hair ( _shut up shut up shut up_ ). She holds the covers tightly in her arms sometimes, face screwed up, knuckles white. And then, on the rarest occasions, she fully reaches out, arm extended and hand waiting. She's reaching for something, and he doesn't know what.

When it happened at first, he just stared, concerned, but let her be. And eventually she settled. But the second time, she seemed airy and gone, and a gripping fear rocketed through his body like ice water, a feeling so intense he couldn't stop himself from believing that she was about to disappear into nothingness, into thin air. He floated over to her, then, ghostlike and silent as the dead, and slowly, hesitantly, reached back. He looked down at her from his vantage point, _felt_ the heat that trembled from her and the needingness to catch what it was she reached for, and his hand -- half boy, half bird -- extended to hers. It shook, and the centimeters closed one by one, until his fingertips were a breadth from hers, and he was holding his breath, and he wouldn't blink, and they were so, _so_ close to touching, so close to reaching her... when suddenly her fingers twitched once more. Then, her face contorted into frustration and her arm dropped, limp once more, to the bed, and the Strider let out the breath he didn't even realize he had been holding in the first place.

It was very dangerous to watch her sleep, so he kept his distance, safely by the door.

Some things stay the same, though.

A quiet _tap tap tap_ alerts him to flats, which means Kanaya. It is hands down, really goddamn awkward when he floats around to her to cut her off, and her expression visibly falls, and she confirms simply, "She's sleeping."

"Yeah."

He realizes that she's holding a book in her hands, red and leather-bound and she's fingering the spine tentatively as she sighs, looking away.

"Is that for Rose?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes. It is a novel I discovered not terribly long ago, and I thought that she might enjoy it. It appears to be about human fashion, which I don't know much about, but I recognized this one."

"I can get it to her, if you'd like. Don't want you to have come all this way for nothin'."

Kanaya smiled, beautifully as usual -- she had the most photogenic smile this side of the universe, frankly -- and nodded. "Yes, I would very much appreciate that. Here. Do take care of her, Dave. And thank you. I'll just come back later."

"Sure, sure. Be good, Kandy-cane."

She was already out of visible distance, arms crossed as she fake-angrily stormed away at his nickname, when he realized something and dropped the book.

Dave.

Someone had called him Dave.

Something powerful echoed in his chest, like a forgotten memory of a forgotten dream, and heat prickled in his eyes, which was really fucking embarrassing because who the fuck got this emotional just over someone using their goddamn given name. He ruffled all of his feathers and shook his head to clear it and looked over both shoulders, just in case someone was watching him combat his emotions. But then, in a classic moment of type II bipolar that Sollux would have been proud of, he burst into cawing laughter. It was a very strange sound, because, he realized, he really didn't laugh all that often. But here he was, lilting noise scratching against his throat as he leaned against a wall for support, tail swirling with mirth.

Kanaya had given him Lolita. By Nabokov.

The cackling went on until he was wiping tears from his eyes, and someone cleared their throat, and it dawned on him that at some point in time, another person had joined him in the hall.

"Uhh... Am I interrupting something?"

There was a more-bird-than-human sound that left his throat, because he simply did not have the time to stop it from coming out, and the back of his neck prickled. On a list of things that he does not want to happen, this is pretty high up on it. Tower of Babel level, if he had to come up with some sort of point of reference.

"Uh," he says dumbly. "No?"

Dave Strider purses his lips and nods very slowly as his mouth curves into a smirk. He thinks it's funny, but not in a malicious way or anything.

"All right then. I didn't know Lolita was a comedy, but I can roll with that. Nbd. D'you know where Lalonde is off sharpening her needles? I promised her ice cream once I found the code for it again."

 _Now_ he had the time to stop the words from coming out of his mouth, but he simply opted not to care.

"I've never heard sharpening the needles as a euphemism before now. I'll have to add that to my incredible and expansive repertoire. But anyway..."

It felt good to see Dave go red in the ears out of mortification instead of pleasure.

"Woah woah woah, slow down, champ, I didn't say shit about the little lady flicking the bean." There was a pause. And then, to his great amusement, Dave continued hesitantly, "...Is she?"

He deserved an Oscar for keeping a straight face. He placed a solemn hand on Dave's shoulder.

"Dude."

"Okay, okay, I just wasn't _sure_ , I didn't want to go fuckin' slinking back there to walk in on the show, Jesus Christ. Sh-she's my sister."

The last few words tumbled out his mouth haphazardly, like spilled milk. Dave losing his cool? Unthinkable. The feeling that welled in his gut was sour buttermilk, lemony and like sludge. It was patently obvious what caused his stumble, and flashes of slamming him into the wall blazed by his eyes, but no, no, no -- he would do what _he_ could not, and keep _his_ cool. He was better than that. (Yeah. Sure).

"Your secret's safe with me." He found himself saying this, dully. Dave pretended like he had no idea what he was talking about, but played along anyway.

"Lock and key? Thirty-foot thick titanium safe?"

"Retina scanner and voice activated."

"Armed guard?"

"Drone protected."

"Aight. Cool. So are you gonna let me by or what?"

"Can't let you do that, Starfox. Mamasita is dreaming."

"That's pretty fucking interesting that you know that, y'know. Is that what you spend all your time doing? Rubbing one out from the cloaca on her sleeping form? I didn't know we were into that."

"Yowza, honey, that hurt. Close, I was just passing through and noticed. But yeah, I figured you wouldn't want to go barging in and waking her up. I don't think she sleeps much."

"You're right. I have no fucking clue how she does it."

He held up his hands in a silent 'beats me'. Dave shrugged in return.

"Well, thanks. If you catch her before I do, let her know about the Cold Stone extravaganza."

"Will do."

Dave hovered for just a moment or so, scuffing his Converse against the tile, before nodding a farewell and slinking off, seeming slightly more tense and somewhat more disappointed. Oh well. Can't please everyone.

It was always awkward talking to him.

But, everything had gone well, and the princess still slept safely in the confines of her room. He had done something good in this world after all. After several centuries of laying down sick beats, being shit on, carefully crafting and composing himself into the epitome of Cool, this was what it all boiled down to: Rose Lalonde's sleeping patterns.

"The fuck am I doing..." He ran a fitful hand through his warm hair, mumbling. His boy half was building up anxious momentum quickly; a longstanding thought of _how the fuck did this happen to me_. Wasn't it precious minutes ago that he was sitting in his room, on the computer? Wasn't he supposed to be going to school on Monday? Where was the take-out pizza, where were Bro's quiet snaps of _do the dishes before I kick your ass_ , where where where did everything go and how did he end up here instead?


	5. veritas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now, scary and sad things happen! this is a davesprite/rose story after all.
> 
> playlist [here](http://8tracks.com/ghostyyy/garden-of-eden).

He floats back to a safer place. Rose is resting peacefully still.

His arms are crossed, with slightly taloned hands digging into his skin enough to pull him out of that abyss in his heart.

Thankfully, it did not last long, and his existential crisis crawled back to its cave, and his crowparts went back to its perch (on the worst days, it got to the crow half and he almost ripped out feathers and he definitely made embarrassing noises and hid). He rubbed his arms, and took deep, slow breaths, and barely flinched when Rose said sleepily, "Morning, Davesp..." She ended on a yawn, and it was mega kawaii desu. So much so that he ignored the important part of her sentence and spared him the feeling of toothpicks under his fingernails. "Good morning."

"Good morning," he replied quietly. 

Time slowed, as it often does, and it waited long minutes for Rose to fully wake up. Meanwhile, he wandered over to a chair in the room and sat uncomfortably, pretending it wasn't weird at all that he was caught watching her sleep a-fucking-gain, while she combed her fingers through clumps of hair, stared distantly at the wall, put her face into the blankets and breathed slowly. He knew that look.

She'd had a nightmare.

"I had a nightmare," she murmured into her quilt.

He sucked his bottom lip under his teeth for a moment, mulling over how to respond. When she looked up at him with large, glazed violet eyes that seized him by the very roots of his soul, he was -- as he would forever be -- inexplicably drawn to her, a blink later hovering at her bedside like a will-o-wisp.

"D'you want to talk about it?" He asked because he was supposed to. But, he wasn't sure what else he was supposed to do. The more he thought about it, the more apparent it became that he had no idea where he stood with Rose Lalonde. What was he? Friend? Confidante? The weight in his chest grew steadily, turning into piles and heaps of sleet with no summer in sight.

For the second time so far, he had to contain an avian declaration of surprise, because her hand had found his wrist and she was touching him. Like. Really touching him. Her fingers were soft on the mild scales of his skin and so sadly cold that he wanted to breathe on them. She held his wrist so carefully, and he felt his lungs trying to expand but they just flicked the blunt and said, 'Nah brah, I'mma chill', and the walls all laughed at him and he set his jaw. It took everything in him, but he stared up at the ceiling to collect himself, released a sigh, and he looked down to face her. 

Rose's eyes were glassy and her gaze was controlled but he could see wateriness that hemmed her bottom lashes. Wordless, her hand slid down into his, fingers tangling deftly and tightly. There was promise in her gaze, of primordial forlornness and ghosts and loss. A field of flowers; a boy and a girl; a canvas of clouds that disappeared, one by one. He scarcely remembered ever seeing her look at him so pleadingly, openly.

"It was from the old timeline," she said, her voice barely audible. She quickly licked her dry lips, and continued, blinking upwards to contain tears, "I don't want to remember."

"I..." He began but didn't know any words to say 'I know' in a meaningful enough way. Fuck it. Who cares. Not him, that's for sure. He stopped giving a shit about anything long enough that he let his hand weave into hers, talon-fingers carefully pressing against the sweet skin that was the back of her hand. There was always the chance that his near-piercing nails would hurt her, or that his unnatural half-flesh, half-scales repulsed her, but, c'est la vie. In time, he would convince himself that this one brief moment of contact would be enough.

His curved mouth was hidden as he looked away, dry and mirthless. Finishing the sentence became meaningless, because the emptiness in him was now pronounced in a way he had never known.

He would never be Dave. This was the ultimate truth. He would only be a distant ghost of that boy, tarnished with corvid tendencies. Rose loved Dave, and he would never be that Dave.

Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered at all.

His free hand swept to her crown, and he swooped down right beside her, no longer above her in the air. He ran his fingers tenderly against her messy hair, untangling it as he went in a horribly, painfully familiar way, and he let himself smile when he tucked her into his embrace. The intensity of the memory of this, holding her, consoling her, was nothing short of an inferno.

"S'okay, Rosie," he whispered, eventually. "You don't have to remember. I'll do that."

"Why am I crying?" A shaky, innocent response that came from against his chest.

"Because it was shitty. It was real goddamn shitty. Don't worry, little lady, just take... take a deep breath, and it'll go away."

"I... Shouldn't I not, want it to? These were my memories. They were precious. They were... dreadful. But, but they were mine, weren't they? Am I not the same person I was then?"

"You know what happened and that is way, way more than enough. People forget things for a reason, and let me tell you, there's a good reason the Lalonde defense systems are locking down on this bad boy."

A little nod of understanding. A shuddering sigh. A squeeze of the hand. A sniffle. Stillness. The psychology she had spoon-fed him paid off.

It takes a bit, but she seems to calm down, breathing regaining a bit of steadiness until he can feel the even rise and fall of her chest against his stomach. She doesn't seem to mind his birdy hands, as she's taken to rubbing her thumb against the inside of his palm and down his wrist ( _so many fucking shivers down his spine_ ) and she turns her head so her temple is resting on his solar plexus. His fingers are still soothingly combing through her hair.

The air in the room, once old and lavender, has muddled into something grey and honey-like. Honey and grey should never be used in the same sentence. This cannot be good, he thinks. This is too good. I don't deserve this. This is a one-way ticket to Satan's Playhouse and I'm the fuckin' conductor. Strider the Tank Engine. Next stop, h--

"Did you love me, in the other timeline? Or... do you think you could have grown to, perhaps?"

-

...A long movie plays on the inside of his eyes. Miles and miles of lava and clockwork. Molten fire being spit up from cracks in the earth, and crocodile people all chattering away at cauldrons and weaponry. Stacks on stacks of fat loot.

Cotton candy cumulus; a forever-reaching river, a quiet rain. A ridiculous yet lovely horse with a bow worthy of the sweet lolita monarch. A house -- no, a home -- filled with books; reminiscent of Beast's castle, bestowed to Belle (except, much better). Alcohol. IMs and grist, and laughter, and determination.

A message. One is dead. Another message, and now the other. Musical chairs with bodies. Bodies who wer-- are. Friends.

A pair of eyes that can look so far into space that they lose sight of everything. The color of them becomes indescribable. The books dwindle into rummaged pages. Soggy. Torn. None unturned. The rain is a curse, the sherbet coloured world is torment. But, there is hope -- dim, dull, and diluted as it is -- and he skips passively through loops and holes and down the tight waist of the hourglass and back again. He wishes he could take her with him, you know, but he can't. It might break her.

She's going to break, though. Inevitably.

Nobody can tell if a flower is sad, even after you've known it so long it's dying on the windowsill. Even if its leaves were decaying, fraying around the edges like an ancient book. Even if the stem is giving in like a degenerating spine, and the petals gather round in one last game of ring-around-the-rosie in the parched soil. It doesn't mean it's sad. It could mean that it's accepted its fate, and it's ready to go to the great big secret garden in the sky.

She grows smaller and sadder. He's not sure he can pinpoint where this went wrong, nor if there was really any chance at salvaging the scraps. 

She stops sleeping.

She lays by the river all day.

He's watching her watch her needles and thoughtlessly run her hands against the spines of black books, dreamless.

She's saying sad things again.

In absolute perfection, he can recall the last thing she said to him:

"Dave, I think you should go."

"Uh. What?"

"Go find the timeline that functions. Everyone and everything will be correct there. You can help them, maybe prevent this fate."

"Rose, I'm not fucking leaving you. Don't do this to me. We talked about it, we've talked forever about it, I'm not going to fucking let you die here alone, you are all I have.” He repeats it for good measure. Because they are still heavy in his lungs. “You. Are. All. I. Have."

"Dave," she repeats, more sternly. Her eyes are bright and her lips are trembling and her voice is firm. "I know. But I cannot bear to know I let you down."

" _Rose_." He rushes to her to hold her face in his calloused hands and in the way he has wanted to for ages, kisses her flat on the forehead, smushes his nose against her frazzled bangs. "Nobody could ever outdo you. Fuckin'-- just-- Just ignore everything I've ever told you until now, all right? Listen. Listen real close. I love you. You're... you're... _fuck_ I wish I knew the right words like you do. Perfect. I don't know, where are things that mean... everything... I, goddamnit, Rose Lalonde, you are all I ever want in the whole shitty universe, do you understand me? Every fucking bit of snark and bullshit, and all of your hundred-fuckin’-million ideas, and yarn, and your... you. You're the only Rose there is. Nobody could ever be more Rose than you." His voice cracks; "I need you."

She looked into his eyes plaintively. Her smile had shattered.

Her hand touched his cheek. And his voice cracked more. And he said, bravely, "I'll take it to the grave, Lalonde. I promise."

"Thank you. That's all I need. I trust you. Please b-be safe, Dave."

Her voice got smaller and smaller with each word.

"Of course."

And that was that.

-

"Of course," he replied, voice blistering. It felt immeasurably good to say that out loud. Of course I loved you. Of course I love you. "Of fucking course."

Now is when she draws back. Her hands are still resting on his chest (his heart twists) and her fingers deftly hold the fabric as she stares up at him, wide-eyed and bewildered and looking as if she's certain she missed something very important.

"I... I meant in the romantic sense." She emphasizes _romantic_. "Not in the sib--"

He repeats it, voice losing volume but gaining intensity. "Of course I loved you."

Rose Lalonde continues to stare, processing blankly. The room is quiet, lost in its own little place in the universe. Somehow, she finds it in her to ask a question again.

"...Dave, I... Why... Why do you watch me sleep?"

 

Game over.

 

He goes perfectly still. Every atom in his body locks down and slams on the red alert button so hard that it ripples down his wings and his feathers bristle like tangerine fans of burlesque dancers. He knows in the back of his mind he can see her flinch back and away from him at his reaction, confused, but he is too focused on the sensation of releasing her from his proximity so that he can jam his nails into his hands in tight, burning fists, and he's retreating while a raucous noise comes out of him like a dying crow. He can't take it anymore. Words bubble up in his esophagus like bile and he heaves desperately, choking on his own spit, because he has to tell her, has to admit, "I have to keep you safe. I have to keep you safe because I couldn't fucking do it _before_. Ff... fuck, fuck, goddamnit, fuck." That's not enough, is it? "Rose, m'sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."

He buries his face into his hands, glasses clattering to the floor as thick, hot tears dribble down his cheeks and knuckles. He can't bear to look at her yet. Her voice is so small he already knows how devastating the expression on her face must be.

His words hang drearily in the air, waiting for her reply. It is, as expected, miserable and so confused. "D-dave, I don't... understand. You... Didn't you listen to me sleep talk? I thought..."

"No. No, Rose, I didn't. It was just a joke. A dumb fuckin' joke, and I am a sack of shit, and I lied to you. Sorry. Sorry."

It takes a little bit for the implications of this to set in. He can almost palpably feel the gears in her head turning, moving, making deductions, and it isn't too long before the currents in the atmosphere shift around. Rose is powerful, you know. She may not have the legendary blade, or the divine shield, nor does she command an unstoppable army. But there is _nothing_ that could compare to the intricate labyrinth of her mind, the coursing power that runs through it.

So at first, the space is like a vacuum. There is emptiness that is so desolate it is frigid, but then, as soon as it set in, there was all-consuming heat. It lacked the ebb and flow of fire, and instead was a solid wall of a thousand degrees. He thought he felt his feathers burn at the tips.

"All of this happened," she says, softly, and her voice is a singeing needle in the ear. "Because you opted to deceive me?"

She's standing, now -- floating, actually -- her hair floating around her in an electrically-charged halo and her eyes literally smoldering with light. Her clothes flutter gently on her, and he's reminded of a destroying angel from the hands of Michelangelo.

But she doesn't move from that spot. She only bobs gently, up and down, like an orange blossom hummingbird, and he sees her fingers clench and unclench. The shame that has filled his very being is so heavy on his bones that he himself is sinking to the floor, where he can do nothing but offer a smile that is nothing but hopeless and pathetic and very surrendering.

He says, to her face, clearly and quietly, "T'wasn't out of malice. But I'm sorry."

She doesn't have time to reply, not that he thinks she's going to speak to him ever again post-this, and so he is decimated. Guilt obliterates him and instinct takes over, flight becoming the only option. The walls offer no resistance as he bullets through them, going on forever and ever into recesses of the ship he's only been to perhaps once or twice. He goes so far back that he can curl up against a rusting wall and smash his fists against it and bawl and sob and crow as loudly as he pleases into the metal, and know that no-one will ever be the wiser.

 _And if we're real lucky_ , he vaguely thinks somewhere in the middle of it all, _I'll never find my way back, and just die here._ No promises broken. Take 'em to the grave.

Every last one of them.


	6. pénitence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm in shock because i opened up my garden of eden file to write more and saw that i literally had multiple chapters finished that i forgot to post. considering self-immolation as we speak. enjoy more davesprite suffering!
> 
> playlist, as usual, [here](http://8tracks.com/ghostyyy/garden-of-eden).

The guilt eats him alive for weeks. He grows weak. 

His wings are dismal, and he resembles a moulting adolescent who was pushed from the nest too early, or perhaps got in a nasty fight with a ceiling fan.

Much to his relief, though, he has only seen two people in the duration of his hermitage, and he managed to pluck up some composure for just enough time to make it seem like nothing was out of the ordinary. It’s not like anyone saw much of him anyway, even before this whole debacle. He was quite good at keeping to himself. Ignoring the plethora of feathers that litter the residence.

There was, of course, a mind-numbing fear that she would come find him, as she was the only one who knew where his "”””home”””" was on board. But days and days went by, and not a soul came even close to his halls. 

And it's not all bad, you know?

The shabby little closet that he has taken to calling home is given the Extreme Home Makeover: Battleship Edition treatment. He occupies himself and sates his magpie tendencies by going out and finding treasures in the shadows and tributaries of endless corridors. Between treks, armed with a thick, knitted scarf (there is a legitimate chance that she made it but he needs it so he just pretends otherwise) and a dustpan and soapy bucket (don’t even) and rag, he slowly dismantles his collection and clears out debris and dust bunnies that clog the highest shelves. It's a grueling, time-consuming process that takes a lot of menial labour and patience, but it's something to do, something to look forward to. 

Something to exhaust him, so that he may sleep at night.

By the time he's moved everything, it's reminiscent of Wall-E's shack, without the meticulous organization and different stock. There's more sets of cards, like playing decks and Yu-Gi-Oh!. And tarot. Those are pushed to the back. They remind him too much of. Anyway. He's taken to an interesting collection of clocks, some pocket watches, some ticking ringing alarm ones that stand on tiny feet, some broken, some bent. But there is one that works, still, and that one is a small blessing that gives him some peace of mind. Digressing though, there is also now an eclectic assortment of figurines of all shapes, sizes, and materials, and more snowglobes and music boxes, and old consoles, and a xylophone, lightbulbs (thank god), a hundred books, clothes...

Sometimes he sits alone with a toque on his head. Missing wearing your sweet threads is perfectly normal, and attempting to shut out the memories so you won't have to feel the ache of knowing it'll probably never happen again is too.

His pride and joy, however, is the pièce de résistance: The Nest.

At one point during his rummaging, he found a basket that was nothing but heaps upon heaps of persian-inspired fabrics, rich, luscious colours and luxurious in his hands and a bit dirty but perfectly adequate. Underneath these were soft, grandmotherly quilts that appeared to be handsewn, soft and cottony and perfectly made for sleepy children to cuddle in by a fire or television set. And then... then, there was the Snuggie. But that is a story for another day. Now in possession of glorious fat loot, he began revamping his nest. First and foremost he dug out the elaborate oriental rug from it and used it in the more conventional way, neatly covering the concrete floor with it instead. He gave up on keeping the clothes on the shelves folded all nice and pretty, and he bitterly put them in the pile. And then, he gathered all the nice things he found in the aforementioned basket, and stacked, and pluffed and stuffed, and primped, and fluffed, wove, tangled, untangled, piled and cocooned, until his nest was refined to hell and back. It was majestic. He set up a tiny wooden footstool next to it where he put an ornate elephant lamp, a jar with a dead sunflower and some dead lizards, and the book he was currently reading (The Old Man and the Sea, by Hemingway, for the millionth time as it were).

It was as close as you could get to perfect. It would have to do. It was home. His own little slice of Eden.

Nevertheless, when he was finished, the unfamiliar sense of pride and contentment was ejected fiercely when he remembered the first time Miss Lalonde entered and gave it a singular radiance and completion he couldn't have dreamt of if he had a thousand years to try. Even if he hadn't remembered this, it wouldn't have changed his routine afterwards. 

He spends most of his time immersed in his bedding, sobbing and cawing into the masses of cloths. The tears are nonexistent, now; the well dried up and who gives a fuck! When he gives up on that, tires himself out, he falls asleep without remembering when he did, but he always knows what time it is and how long it's been when he wakes up. It is a fucking curse. Can't get away from anything, trapped by time forever. The one pocketwatch, aforementioned, that still ticks correctly, is horrible because the sound is somehow so soothing and he feels like he remembers it from some dead fever dream. But. He doesn't. So. Moving the hell on.

The shitrag that was Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff nosedives further, if that was even possible. At first, it was just the inclusion of considerably more black humor, but then it got worse and worse and the saved folder became ridden with melancholy drawings. Scribbles. Black shapes and grey figures. Things dying. Blood. Quiet. Him. Her.

Like a sick trope, he reiterates: it has been four weeks, sixteen hours, thirty-five minutes, and nine seconds.

When he mourns in his bed, he wonders, always wonders, what she is doing, and where he went wrong, and why he tried at all.

It is needless to say that Dave Strider haunts him now harder than ever. The color red sets off a violent, repulsive reaction like a polluted heroin injection in a gas station bathroom. He drags his talons down the walls as he flies by placidly, leaving long marks and ear-bleeding notes like Satan’s nails on a chalkboard, wondering casually how long it's taken her to finally seduce his better half. It takes so little. His eyes upon her neck — his hands upon her hands — his lips caress herfff _FUCK_ that.

_Fuck_ that.

(He tries to hate her, to stop caring, to feel something else other than this constant agony that drains him. Nothing works. He stops trying.)

And, truthfully, not existing seems like a pretty good idea at this point. If you made him pinpoint what exactly kept him going before, he'd settle on how there was a sort of bittersweet hope that he could be the sideline hero who provided singular and important backup from behind the scenes, who’d lead everyone to safety from the shadows. But, god— everyone is so _strong_. He isn't sure when he fell so amazingly far behind. There is a flutter of pride and spite in his chest cavity, pride because some of these people were his friends and fuck yeah his friends are good enough to become that powerful! And spite because he is not. And he laughs dryly to himself. He knew a while ago that the game would go on smoothly without him.

But, always — as always — there was Rose. Underneath the hope, past that, there was a visceral connection to the girl, and it fought tooth and nail in his very soul for acknowledgment. Her last words echoed in unhearable whispers in his head, all the time, please be safe, Dave, please be safe. Dave. Dave, Dave, _Dave_. He _never_ forgets that that is his name. Never loses the gospel-like sound of how her low, crooning voice saying it. She called him that, you know? And she says it differently from the other Dave's. He likes his better, because it is objectively better.

Tears do well up, this time, which is a surprise, but maybe it's because something has broken in his chest because, well, Rose is not coming back, and there is nothing he can do about it anymore.

Death seems good.

He sniffles, runs his arm over his face, and hiccups a little into his elbow.

_Unfuckingbelievable_ , he thinks. _It's coming down to this. I'm going to kill myself. Wow. GG, dude, G-fucking-G. You are the hero, it's you._

Accepting this both releases a boulder from his heart and adds a blank hole to his everything. His wings are creaky, and his eyes are tired, so tired, and his talons are dull.

"Now's as good a time as any," he attests to no one. There's a box in the back of one of the shelves with Bro's katana in it. That is the only way to go. "M'sure he won't mind."

Five minutes later, he's still floating feet above the ground, trembling, teeth chattering and screaming in his head that he should not be so afraid of dying because, remember! You're a piece of shit; and _Rose_ was brave enough to do it, and she fucking did it alone, at that, and she did it for YOU you _ungrateful_ — 

"Ahhh," he rasps. Rose. He’s still foolishly talking to himself. "Maybe... maybe I'll just... go see her... one more time."

Something in him warms up, a little. Like the flicker of a match flame in an abyss.

For the first time in weeks, he feels calm.

"Yeah," he affirms. "Yeah. I guess I should."

\---

It is nothing short of a miracle that a single whim could so catastrophically alter a timeline.

A conversation, a will, a joke, a mistake — all of these create snags and tears and some turn out all right and many, many do not.

There is a universe, somewhere, where he dies by his own hand, as the blade intends.

\---

When he starts returning to the inhabited section of the ship, sensing other people is a bit overwhelming, but he swallows that down and adjusts his shades and the _feeling_ of Rose hits him like a ton of bricks. It is as soft and faraway as lilacs, and he knows for sure that she is sleeping. He exhales a breath he didn't know he was holding.

He passes by Terezi, whom he ignores as she perks her eyebrows and tilts her head, and narrowly misses Karkat stomping down the hall with his hands jammed into his pockets, muttering something about shoujo manga and bullshit, and he creeps, perfectly ghostly, to the resting lady's abode.

It's been quite some time.

He pauses outside the door. Someone could see him, but he can't bring himself to go in yet. Panic, doubt, starts chiming in like a courtroom, all wheedling him and moaning about how he knows she's safe and sound and sleeping like a baby and that's all he needed, wasn't it? She's fine, she's fine. Leave her be. Let her...

There is a flash of red and he has visions of Dave coming into her room and waking her up for something trivial and fucking stupid like coffee and protectiveness kicks in like an atom bomb and he's in front of her before he can even realize he moved.

\---

 

This is not that universe.


	7. catharsis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> straight-up dedicating this shit to flamepawsome. thank you for everything you have done for me.
> 
> playlist [heeeeeeere](http://8tracks.com/ghostyyy/garden-of-eden).

Rose Lalonde is sleeping. She looks just the same as always. It has only been a few weeks, he reminds himself.

Point is, it's nice to see her sleeping; her hay coloured hair mussing out around her hood, her tired, virtuous eyes sheltered by pale teacup lids. She almost looks dead like this. He feels like he's seen her like this. Ophelia in orange crème, sans the dreary water. Not yet. No, the opposite -- long, long ago.

The rhythmic, perfect tempo that is the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes, is still the same. The opaque color of her eyelids, fluttering as she dreams. Her hands still do strange things, and she still mercilessly claws. Her fingernails tear distantly at the sheets under her. Her fingers twist and twitch, like she's playing a piano or a violin, or perhaps touching someone's hair ( _shut up shut up SHUT UP_ ). But, no, it seems too violent for that now. Her hands shake. This goes on until she's wincing and rolls over, holding the covers tightly in her arms with her face screwed up, knuckles white. 

And he sits there, hanging in the air like a ghost, his chest feeling like it's about to crack under the weight of an ocean because he wants, so bad, to curl up around her, and brush her hair from her face, and smooth the stressful lines from her expression. Leaving her will be impossible if he doesn't go soon. She is much too magnetic. She is the sun. Moon. Cosmos. She's just Rose, which is just synonymous with those things.

Her sleeping form draws him in, and one of her hands releases the quilt and limply falls to her side, dangling off the bed with her palm out.

He wants to touch it.

He stares at it. His mind races. She's so asleep, she's probably dreaming, there's no way if he just barely runs a finger across that she'll wake up. Just one little touch... and he can go away... and she can go about her life again.

He is in the middle of reaching out. He is mumbling, "I love you, m'sorry", when her fingers twitch. And her voice says, "Dave...spr...?" And then he rocketed up so hard he slammed into the ceiling and screeched.

"Davesprite!"

Of COURSE he hadn't seen her fucking goddamn shitty eyes open, of COURSE he was so enamored with her fucking hands that he missed her STARING AT HIM AS BLATANTLY AS GOD'S ASSHOLE AS SHE WOKE UP; he reflexively clamped his hands on his crown where he smashed it and he cawed quietly in pain and adrenaline began to overload his system: fight or flight or freeze? His eyes wildly searched the room to register the situation, but his vision was still momentarily blurred, and his wings flapped and they cramped up from disuse and everything just hurt more and at this point going anywhere was better than being in here, so he picks 'flight' and gracelessly tumbles down and flaps toward the wall furthest from her—

"NO! No, no, no, don't, please don't go. Please don't go. _Please_."

The siren's song is powerful. As if strings attached to his joints, he braked so hard he could've had whiplash. 

The only thing he could hear was the obnoxiously loud sound of 808s in his head, which was actually his heart rate. He was still clutching his head, and he tried to maybe calm himself a lil bit and seem a tad more presentable for, you know, the only thing he fucking cared about at this point (hint: starts with a 'R'), but the trembling was unstoppable and the throb in his skull was potent. He settled on hyperventilating quietly by the ceiling.

Why. Why why did this happen. Why. His own head answers, bluntly: because you are literally the biggest coward on the fucking face of the earth. Genius of the year 2k13. Congratulations! Where is that fucking Neon Genesis video when you need it?

"...It... it is so hard to sleep without you."

The confession is so, so soft that frankly he is not sure if he heard it correctly. His blurred vision finally seems to be righting itself, and he forces himself to look at Rose, who is still in repose in bed across the room. And she is curled up with her knees against her chest, and her arms uselessly draped around them. She looks like she is too old for her young body. She is brave, though, because she is looking straight into him like she can pull apart his soul with a glance if she so desires. But, admittedly, her amaranthus eyes seem to have faded to pressed peony, and her fluffy blonde hair perhaps less so as well.

She wets her lips before she speaks, and takes a breath. As usual, to anyone else she would seem perfectly at ease, but he sees everything in IMAX, her surrendering slouch, the shaky quality of her breathing. "I didn't know how hard it was," she half-murmured. And he realizes that, yes, he heard her right, and yes, Rose Lalonde was telling him that it was hard to sleep without him.

Birdsong rose up in his chest. The crow-half was celebrating so passionately he couldn't keep it all down, and he managed to contain to a low crooning sound and a small, crooked smile hidden behind his palm.

Rose looks up at him, weary and miserable and thankful and as captivating as the moment he saw her. He forgets that he was about to kill himself after this. She tangles her fingers in front of her, and she looks away, and looks back, and for once, it seems like she really does not know what to say.

She settles on, "Please come back in?"

Slowly, slowly, all his feathers smooth out. The bristles turning into shimmering lined-patterns of burnt orange and firecracker colors. He opens and closes his fists, and takes a deep, steadying breath, and clears his throat. There's a pronounced ache on the top of his head, but it is inconsequential. With effort, he uneasily comes out of the upper righthand corner, and remains far away, but now more properly in the room with her.

He sees her deflate a little bit. In her hands, her mouth. The faintest lessen of her gaze. She looks heartbroken.

Neither of them are sure of what to say.

"How... are you?" Her words are awkward and strained and her hands are held so tightly in her lap he can see her knuckles are still taut and white.

The question is, after a few seconds, actually fucking hilarious considering everything that has gone down in the last ten minutes. And before he can stop himself, he snorts. Then, he falls victim to short bursts of laughter. He was going to kill himself. He hasn't seen Rose Lalonde in nearly five weeks, because he lied to her and she confessed to crushin' on the correct copy of himself because of it — and he was going to kill himself — and Rose is sitting there, all prim and proper, even though her cheeks look pinched and her brow is furrowed and her face contorted between conflicted and glad.

"I'm..." 

I'm what? Spit it out. But he can't. He doesn't know. Words fail him, as they so often do, but old habits are there to cushion the blow. So, he blurts out garbage.

"I'm... uh... I'm okay. I mean, fucked? Like, Christ, god damn it, let me try that... again... Uhh.” He swallows thickly. “I'm. You know."

He feels his blood pooling away from his face rapidly, still weakly smiling. Her eyes are ginormous and he thinks he sees something like hope crawling in from the corners. So he tries again.

"I'm..."

I'm what? What what WHAT? Be real with her, you imbecile! Tell her the fucking truth. Man up. She deserves it, you've put her through enough shit. Tell her how wretched you really are.

"I'm, I'm fuckin' awful.” He realizes immediately his anxiety has led to his southern coming out completely, but he’s already rambling and it’s too late. “I-I was, I mean— Gosh darn it, I tell you what, I was, I was actually planning on checking out early after this, y'feel me? Katana and all. B-but yeah, I... I was just gonna poke my head in, y'know, make sure you were still in one piece and shit, and then figured I'd just be on my merry way. Let y'all get on with your lives."

At least he could rest assured knowing he'd successfully won first place for The Biggest Fucking Tool Alive award! Numbness crept into him to try and fend off the helpful suggestions from his subconscious reminding him that Plan A was still an option.

When he brings himself to meet her gaze again, there is a pronounced, sharp piercing at the stark contrast of her expression. The fleeting happiness from before at his fumbling language had been replaced with blank horror. He realized, lightly, that he had said too much.

"What?" Her voice barely broke the air when she uttered it.

"M'bad," he acquiesced quickly. He put his hands up, surrendering. "My fault. Uh. You... uh... How are you?"

This is the turning point. His question, a question of harmless intent, is an epoch; it is Picasso's _Demoiselles d'Avignon_ (a piece he is not fond of, but holds decent significance so-and-so). The shift is highly potent and highly palpable, so much so that he deals with a chill buckling down the length of his spine, making his wings shudder, and a few absent feathers come loose and fall to the floor like grotesque snowflakes. He didn't care much for revolutions.

But, we can't all get what we want.

Rose Lalonde is an entity of insurmountable light and dark. She is too thoughtful, too stringent, too imbued with the essence of herself, that it is simply uncontainable. He is forever struck by the simple force of her presence and the gravity it came with. He is caught in her web, and her orbit, and her.

And Rose Lalonde looks anguished.

The very real threat of tears linger in her eyes, turning her lids pink and making her breathe in through her nose more stoutly. She can barely keep her bottom lip from trembling, and it literally pains him to see her so nostalgically at the brink of falling the fuck apart. A panicked voice in his head urges him to stop this before it goes on any further, maybe out of selfishness because even he doesn't think he can take it, but it's already too late and she's wringing her marbled hands in her lap like she's trying to break her own wrists.

The bomb drops. It is no Chernobyl, no Hiroshima. It is a quiet affair; no different than a missile to the moon.

"Will you tell me about the doomed timeline?"

The distant and somber voice doesn't sound like her, she who wants to so badly look at her hands or the floor, but plucks up the resolve in the dredges of the remains of her effort, and maintains his attention.

As usual, he admits, he cannot deny such a face on such a girl. It was hopeless from the start. To be expected. It was Rose, after all.

"Yeah," he says, defeated. "Yeah."

He doesn't move any closer to her. He dutifully lingers in his little invisible safety proximity thing. Not that that made any sense, it just made him feel better, and repelled thoughts of a katana.

"Were we happy?"

Christ. Start with the hard hitters, wouldn’t she.

"Sometimes. It dwindled as shit started to hit the fan. Best friends being murdered is kind of a buzzkill." He jokes flatly. "We had a lot of good times, though. It wasn't all bad."

"What did we do?"

"You read a lot, nerd.” The soft smile on his face eases the blow. “I did time shenanigans. We talked forever. I can't begin to tell you how much we ran our mouths, 'specially when we were gettin' crunk." It was a lie; he knew exactly how long. "And we did normal shit -- slept, explored the wild blue yonder, played board games. A lot of chess."

"Was... was I very different?"

This question hits harder. He feels himself unwillingly sinking closer to the ground, and his expression twists into something sympathetic, desperately hoping that his words will reach her.

"Nah," he whispers. "Not at all. You're still a stuffy, flighty broad as you ever were. 'Course, you're not nearly as weepy or suicidal. But you're still Rose."

His answer seems to pique something in her, and she looks somewhat afraid. She follows up with, "When was I weepy and suicidal? Did other things happen?"

God. Damn it.

"Um," he begins, his insides contorting. "I... No, not really. When you're trapped in a shithole and slowly realizing that you're trapped in a shithole, it kind fucks with your head. Not saying you turned into Hannibal Lecter or some shit, but... you got pretty sad, Lalonde. Like I said, it got worse as it went on, and the worst was at the end. I... I think you handled it... okay. Like, it wasn't good— ha, no, it was fucking awful, not gonna lie. It was hard watching you quit sleepin' and just... readin' books... not really there."

"So..." The little word is faint, probably because she feels sick. It's okay. He feels the same. He goes ice-numb to prepare for the inevitable. "...How did it end?"

He is plummeting to the floor now, ending up drifting right before her bed. He gives up on even pretending to be composed and cool and shit, because fucking nothing about this is cool, and he just wants to get this the fuck over with so he can get away from his head and this room and the paralyzing melancholy that is her aura right now. He wants to snuggle into his nest and stop breathing and dream again. He wants to not be him anymore; the boy who was a bird and a silly copy of a far more human original.

"Well... Everything started falling apart. Not like, the world ended, but we just sort of accepted that... that was it. We tried. A lot. Fuck, let me impress upon you that we did so much shit. I'm exhausted just thinking about how much shit we did. We were one well-oiled machine, you and I. And... and one day... you looked at me... You looked at me, and you said, in this, like, stupid and sad voice, 'Dave, I think you should go'. I told you that was bullshit, because it was, but you're a fox and talked me into it. You're too smart for your own good, y'know. Sweet-talking me into going into the right timeline without you. Like, c'mon, Rosie," and finally, his voice cracks and doesn't repair itself, because everything is bubbling up in him faster than Vesuvius on fast-forward, and the imminent meltdown is carefully contained, "Where's your self-preservation, you idiot? How the fuck could you be so sure I'd make it out okay, and you'd make it out okay? God fucking damn it Rose, you don't— you didn't GET it, or maybe you fuckin' did and that's why this is— this is— _horseshit_ , that, that'd you fuckin' talk me into prototyping and closing o-off the t... timeline... and leavin' you..." Every breath is a long, shuddering gasp, and hot tears are viciously pouring down his cheeks as he struggles to say what he'd thought over and over so fitfully, for so long that it was permanently marked in his heart like a cattle brand. "I think I killed you, Rosie," he chokes. "M'sorry. I'm sorry I did it. M'sorry, m'sorry, m'sorry. Holy fucking shit, am I so sorry."

And the last word was out. The cork he'd carefully stuffed in his heart came loose, just like that, and he crumbled. His body wracked with sobs, and he cried harder than he could remember. It was a lot of agony to cry out, and he feels like it's going to last forever, but he can barely think. His head is so blank that it's full of blackness and static. His body feels strange and foreign, and he is a crumpled heap on the floor with his hands curled around his head, glasses still forgotten on the ground, wings tucked in tight. The only thing he sees is that last moment of her face; the age and sleeplessness that has tattooed itself into her eyes, her mouth, her whole being; a smile that is broken and faraway. The most radiant girl he'd ever met.

He'd almost forgotten she was there.

Hands find him. They gently, gently catch his heaving shoulders, sliding up to the junction of his neck, and they lure him upwards, light as a feather. He is pulled into a warm, comforting lap, and the hands circle around him, finding purchase in the little corners under his wings, and he feels Rose shaking, too, from her core to her fingertips, but she curls around him anyway. He lays there, hung over the bed, pressed to her as she holds him, and the whole world smells like Rose and salt, and it is all just a dream, because her lips are pressed to the crown of his head and he can hear her heart beating raucous and wild.

She sniffles, obviously trying not to completely break down herself. And she snuggles her face a little more against his hair, breathing out, her hot breath crawling all the way down his spine and invigorating him and soothing him all at once. He can't if it's Light powers or just her.

"Dave," she mumbled. "I dream about the other timeline sometimes. A-and I, remember things. It's all very faint and haphazard. And I... P-please don't leave me again."

No word in any language described the emotion. He didn't bother trying. Didn't question it. Didn't think.

Hiccuping and crying like a child, he couldn't help himself as she clutched to him tightly, her little frame rocking with her own silent tears. He pried his talons from his face and instead wrapped his arms around her welcoming form, crooning from his gizzard as he bleated even more, clutching her to him. They cried together. He couldn't recall a more all-consuming solace in his entire life. Nothing compared.

"P-please don't kill yourself, Dave," she wept against him. "Please don't g-go. I missed you so much."

His voice was thick and hoarse as his honest reply tumbled out, "I couldn't leave you if I wanted to."

It was not all for naught. He had tangible proof, right here in his arms. Rose was Rose. It was his Rose. Karmic retribution had not ground his hope into dust — hope was the thing with feathers, wasn't it? And he had so many feathers to spare; all the time in the world to spare them.

It is she who seeks out his hands, which were splayed gingerly around her shoulder and lower back in a desperate and tender embrace, and she pries them away so that she may lace them in her own. Rose rubs her fingers against his, her face pressed tightly to him so he cannot see her expression as she squeezes and grips until she is satisfied that he is really, really, really there again. And when she is done, she moves his hands to the crook of her neck and jaw, where he gladly cups, mindful not to hurt her with his intimidating nails.

Holding her is the sweetest feeling in the world. Being drunk was nothing compared to this — nothing. Zilch. Nada. Nil. 

The reunion lasts a length of time that is long, and naturally, far too short for either of them.

But, he thinks, he could die with the utmost satisfaction, and not a passing regret. He doesn't think about the katana.

He contents himself with staring at her splotchy, puffy-eyed face, holding her hands, and drinking in the succulent image of a peaceful, delighted Rose Lalonde.

Everything is okay.


End file.
